A song is a strange kind of art. Created by one artist, it can then be recreated, very differently, by another, as if words and melody were both the thing itself and, at the same time, just the raw material from which the thing is made.
Some of the best cover versions are profound reinventions of the original song. The artists who record them, just occasionally, can reveal things that even the writer might never have suspected was there.
An obvious example is ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’. Fans will disagree, I’m sure, but to my ears, The Beatles’ original version is pretty bland, and is sung, by Ringo, without enthusiasm or conviction. Somehow – and this is its own kind of achievement, I suppose – he makes the line, ‘I need somebody to love’, about as emotionally forceful as, ‘I quite fancy a sandwich.”
Now listen to Joe Cocker’s cover (either the studio version or live), with its melody, time signature, and entire sonic atmosphere altered. Cocker turned a tepid ditty into a psychedelic soul anthem. Where Ringo sounds bored, Joe sounds desperate; and when he sings ‘I need someone to love’, it’s as though his whole life depends on it. The song may not be to your taste – too melodramatic, perhaps? – but the transformation, I think, is miraculous.
It doesn’t need to be so drastic, of course. Many covers work perfectly well without anything like a reinvention. The changes they bring can be subtle and yet still meaningful and worthwhile.
I first heard Melanie Safka (who performed most often as Melanie) on a cassette tape that my father had recorded from an LP. The sound quality was abysmal – all the hisses and crackles of vinyl, without any of the romance or tactile pleasure. I heard a lot of albums for the first time that way, complete with skipping and looping, and even whole songs missing. But despite the bad sound, there was a lot to enjoy on that tape, including Brand New Key, Melanie’s best known song, which itself underwent a rather bizarre reinvention at the hands of Brendan Grace and, later, The Wurzels.
The one that stuck most with me though was her take on ‘Ruby Tuesday’, by The Rolling Stones. I liked the original very much, and still do, but there was something about this particular cover that kept me rewinding and rewinding, listening and listening again.
There’s nothing radically different in what she does, musically speaking. Where the original version has an unusual combination of piano, bowed bass and recorder in the verses, Melanie used a nylon strung guitar and a small string section. She kept the recorder.
They’re not the same, but nor are they a million miles apart.
The biggest difference, on first listen, is in the dynamics. The Stones’ original was primed for radio (it was a single) and the sound is very compressed. It’s particularly obvious in this song because the choruses feature a full band, with drums, electric bass, and acoustic guitar, and yet, while they’re fuller than the verses, they’re not actually any louder – which they would be, obviously, if all the musicians were in the room with you. The sound has been squashed, the verses pulled up and the choruses pulled down, because that’s the way radio likes it: not too much variation.
Melanie’s version, on the other hand, does not completely iron out the up-and-down dynamics of the song. If you turn it to a comfortable volume early on, you may need to adjust soon afterwards. She sings the verses in a slightly slurry, whispery, wobbly voice, and you can tell she’s holding back. But still, the chorus can come as a surprise. If you happen to have a candle burning in the room – which, let’s face it, if you’re listening to Melanie, you probably do – she may just blow it out. At full blast, her voice is enormous. It’s colossal. She sings ‘Goodbye Ruby Tuesday’ as if they might be on opposite sides of a mountain from one another.
None of which, I suppose, changes anything significant about the song. And yet the song does feel changed. I hear Melanie’s version quite differently from the original. I think about it differently. But why?
The lyrics of ‘Ruby Tuesday’ don’t reward too much close attention. There are some duff lines in there, and none of them are especially revealing on their own. The verses are essentially variations on a theme: Ruby Tuesday is a mysterious woman, who has left or is in the process of leaving. She won’t say where she’s from; she’s changeable; she demands an apparent excess of freedom; and she says annoying things like ‘lose your dreams and you will lose your mind’. That’s about the gist of it.
In The Rolling Stones’ version, the implication is clear: The song mourns the end of a relationship. (Keith Richards did indeed write the song about an ex-girlfriend – but the listener shouldn’t and doesn’t need to know that.) The lyrics never make that explicit, but Mick Jagger’s voice seems to create that meaning. Whatever he sings, I assume it’s about sex or love or their loss. That’s part of his talent as a singer. But it can also be a limitation.
Melanie’s version, on the other hand, picks up and amplifies the ambiguity of the lyrics. She allows other possibilities to surface.
Take this couplet, for example:
She just can't be chained to a life where nothing's gained And nothing's lost, at such a cost
When Jagger sings it, there’s no doubt: The cost is to him, since he’s been left behind. But with Melanie, it’s not so clear. Perhaps the cost is not to the singer, but to the subject of the song. After all, a commitment to absolute freedom can mean a failure to make or keep the intimate bonds of friendship and of love. Perhaps that is the cost.
I’m conscious that I could be listening to this song with a rather old-fashioned sensibility (a heteronormative one, if you like). Might I be hearing Jagger as a jilted lover because he’s a man? Am I imagining other interpretations in Melanie’s version because she, like Ruby Tuesday, is a woman?
It’s not impossible. We listen to music through culturally conditioned ears, of course, and it’s not always easy to recognise how such conditioning affects you.
But, to me, there is a kind of openness in Melanie’s voice – an openness that Mick Jagger doesn’t offer. The way she belts out that chorus, I think, suggests admiration or celebration more than it does regret. I can’t help but hear this song, in her voice, as a complicated tribute to Ruby Tuesday, to someone who lives a life of such insistent freedom that she misses out on what others might consider most important. The singer admires and pities her at the same time.
That’s what I hear, at least.
A good cover version doesn’t need to do anything dramatic or surprising. It doesn’t need to reinvent a song. But the best of them, those that go far beyond mere karaoke, offer something – even a glimpse of something – that the original did not. They bring new focus to a song, or sometimes they bring new ambiguity. They cast a different kind of light, or throw a different kind of shade. They expand the possibilities of what has been written.
I love this post and agree wholeheartedly. Sometimes, songs escape into the wild, become their own things, whether to help others, or to say goodbye. I remember being confused by this when I too was discovering music; Melanie was a favourite of my parents, as was Joe Cocker, and it wasn't until later that I realised they did not write those songs. When I heard the originals, I remember having very similar thoughts to yours, wondering why such an important song in my life began its own life missing some part of its soul. I think music cannot be owned, per se, but these covers makes a very good case for music ably owning others.
After reading the first paragraph I was about to say “Such as With a Little Help……..”